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The Apocalyptic Metaphor - Part 3

The History of Demonization

According to Fuller, "During the first three centuries of Christian
thought,
the identities of Satan and the Antichrist were frequently intertwined," but
after that, "The Antichrist has generally been understood to be Satan's
chief disciple or agent for deceiving humanity in the final days...." The
idea of the Devil, an incarnate powerful evil demon leading a battle against
God, gains prominence in the eight and ninth centuries in Christianity. By the
thirteenth century, "the Devil reached the acme of his influence." By
opposing magic and witchcraft, Christian authorities in this period taught the
obvious lesson that some persons in league with the Devil possessed the requisite
skills. Whether this was through demonic possession (preferred cure being exorcism),
or through a secret pact of soul-selling (preferred cure being execution), the
seeds of future witch hunts had been sown. Devil worshipping has been a charge
leveled against religious dissidents, followers of other religious traditions,
non-believers, and dissidents of all stripes.
According to Caras, "[t]he saddest side of the Devil's history appears in
the persecution of those who were supposed to be adherents of the Devil; namely,
sectarians, heretics, and witches."

The original Papal inquisition in the thirteenth century was directed against
dissenters and linked to satanic influence. Sometimes the charge served an
opportunistic purpose. The orthodox order of the Knights Templar was accused
of "bestial idolatry" by "an avaricious king of France...anxious
to deprive them of their wealth." The later Spanish Inquisition, in the
fifteenth century, sought to test the sincerity of converted Jews and Muslims,
some of whom were suspected of concealing Devilish intent.

The demonization of Jews as magical agents of the powerful Devil gains strength
during the sixteenth century Renaissance and the Reformation. During this period,
Jews are charged with the ritual murder of children, poisoning of wells, desecration
of communion bread and wine, and other false allegations that became widely
believed among Christians. Martin Luther believed Jews were agents of the Antichrist
in what he thought were the approaching end times, although he also included
orthodox Catholics loyal to the Pope, the Turkish invaders of Europe, and eventually
all non-Lutherans.

Demonization and conspiracist scapegoating arrived on our shores with the
overwhelmingly Protestant early settlers and their view that Godly persons
were in a struggle with a literal Satan bent on subverting God and country.
The Salem witch hunts were designed to expose conspiratorial subversion by
agents of Satan in the form of witches and their allies. That Jews were the
Christ-killers and objects of justified scorn was a matter of unquestioned
religious doctrine for most Christians in early America. Overlapping this during
some periods was widespread Protestant suspicion that Catholics were satanic
agents of the Antichrist in the personage of the pope.

After several episodes of evangelical and millennialist fervor, the US Christian
fundamentalist movement grew during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century as a backlash against the principles of the enlightenment, modernism,
and liberalism. Since fundamentalists expect the literal return of Christ in
the millennialist end times, they are watchful for the "signs of the times." They
scan contemporary and historic events attempting to match them to Biblical
prophecies, looking for evidence that the end times have arrived. They are
especially concerned with false prophets: political, religious, or business
leaders who are subverting God's will and betraying the faithful by urging
them to abandon their righteous conduct, especially in terms of sinful sexuality
or crass materialism.

Leo Ribuffo's study The Old Christian Right, demonstrated the influence of
apocalyptic Biblical prophecy on Protestant far right conspiracist movements
in the interwar period, especially on the major figures Ribuffo profiles: William
Dudley Pelley, Gerald B. Winrod, and Gerald L. K. Smith. Barkun has studied
apocalyptic millennialism in the Christian Identity movement, and its influence
on major racist and antisemitic ideologues such as Wesley Swift, William Potter
Gale, Richard Butler, Sheldon Emry, and Pete Peters. Robert Fuller notes that "Over
the last two hundred years, the Antichrist has been repeatedly identified with
such 'threats' as modernism, Roman Catholicism, Jews, socialism, and the Soviet
Union."